Thanks Mathis,
I do appreciate the reply.

So, on my present pc I have 1 and a half gig's of ram running with a Pentium 4 CPU running on Windows XP.
So, are you saying that I should keep my old pc, and have a new one running together? Or do you mean I should add more ram to my present one?

Would you mind giving me a bit more info along the way you are thinking?
Sorry to ask so many questions, it's just that I'd really like to get things set up so I can compose and orchestrate smoothly.

thanks if you can elaborate further. Looking forward to hearing more from you if possible Mathis.

best,

Steve [:D]

Steve, I run Strings 1 & 2 from one PC and I usually end up with about 2-2.5Gb samples loaded, so there is no way that I would be able to run Opus on the same PC. You may require less articulations, but I would advise a new PC with a least 3GB RAM to run Strings 1 & 2.

DG

Hi DG,

thank you for that info. I do appreciate that.

Now, I can start talking with my PC builder about this.
best,

Steve [:D]

While you are sorting these things out you need to decide a few things:

What VST host are you going to be using? You need one that is LAA in order to load the maximum number of samples that your RAM will allow.

You also have to decide how MIDI is going to get to this machine and how audio is going to get back to your DAW. You can use MIDI hardware, a network app like MOL (or other FREE ones) together with a soundcard, or you can do the whole thing over a network with FX-Teleport (but you will need a Gigabit network for this).

You need to use the /Gig switch, and you should make sure that your builder tests all of the above so that you don't spend your valuable composing time being a PC trouble-shooter.

DG

DG what host are you using that's LAA?

FX-Teleport [:D]

DG

Hi DG,
at the moment my midi keyboard is the MAudio Keystation 88 es, so I should be OK in that area.
My sequencer - I have 2 - Overture 4, and Cakewalk HomeStudio 2004. I've already used both with Opus samples and work fine.
It seems to me, that from what I have read, that I will need to add more ram.
That should not be a problem with my new pc.
I am not sure by what you mean by the term LAA, this is the first time I've encoutered that term before, but hopefully there will be no trouble with HomeStudio. I have thought about purchasing Cubase SX, as Beat Kaufmann does brilliant demo's using this.

Thanks again for the information. I do appreciate the help.

best,

Steve [:D]

@Steve Martin said:

Hi DG,
at the moment my midi keyboard is the MAudio Keystation 88 es, so I should be OK in that area.
My sequencer - I have 2 - Overture 4, and Cakewalk HomeStudio 2004. I've already used both with Opus samples and work fine.
It seems to me, that from what I have read, that I will need to add more ram.
That should not be a problem with my new pc.
I am not sure by what you mean by the term LAA, this is the first time I've encoutered that term before, but hopefully there will be no trouble with HomeStudio. I have thought about purchasing Cubase SX, as Beat Kaufmann does brilliant demo's using this.

Thanks again for the information. I do appreciate the help.

best,

Steve [:D]

Under Windows, applications are limited to using 2Gb of memory unless they are coded Large Address Aware, in which case they can use more. Cubase is LAA, but if you are hosting the samples on another machine then it is the slave VST host that has to be LAA. AFAIK Forte is one of the best candidates as a VST host because of this reason.

On any machine that you intend to use for samples you should have at least 3GB RAM.

If you keep your old machine you can use it for running more samples, and the cheapest way to do this is via a Network connection using FX-Teleport. By using this program you don't need a MIDI interface or soundcard on this extra, slave machine. That way you can use both your new machine and your old one at the same time.

However, be aware that the VSL VI Collections can't be split up, so if you were hoping to run Violins from one machine and Violas from another, then you're out of luck.

DG

FX-teleport is still only for windows, right?

@Vagn Luv said:

FX-teleport is still only for windows, right?

Yes.

DG